Month: October 2016

Happy almost Halloween! Do you get trick or treaters where you live? We don’t. I’m hoping to get out and walk around town a bit to see some cute kiddos dressed up though and check out the decorations. My in-laws are coming up tonight to visit, so I’ve been busily preparing for their arrival. I may be a little out of reach for the next little while since I’ll be touring them around and enjoying their company =)

These are adorable! I love the eyeball on top to make it a little more spooky 😉 I have been having a hard time battling my sweet tooth lately, so making lighter treats like these to have on hand definitely help. I can’t wait to try these.

‘Tis the season for candy! But who says it has to be filled with scary sounding ingredients, sugar-laden and GMO’s? There are some great treats out there that can give you some peace of mind when you hand out candy.

Happy almost Halloween!! I’m totally in the spirit. Halloween is my all-time favourite holiday. Growing up, I have the best memories of helping my dad decorate our house. We would walk around town scoping out potential competition and then brainstorm ideas. We would fill hazmat suits from his work with leaves and hang them from our tree. We would take red spray paint and leave “blood spatters” everywhere. We had black lights and creepy music. The whole 9 yards! I loved very minute of it. So it’s not surprise as an adult, I still like to go all out.

One of the things I enjoy most aside from decorating, is making fun holiday-themed food. I’ve made similar recipes the past few years, so I wanted to make some different things this year. On the menu were the amazing Gut-sy Spider Cupcakes from Lazy Vegan Baker (complete with green pudding in the middle for brains!). I also made these Witches Fingers:

Not pictured is the Nacho Dip from the OhSheGlows cookbook (because it’s orange and INSANELY delicious) and a veggie tray with purple carrots and orange pepper slices with black bean hummus. Guests brought some cute things too:

Cute pumpkin cookies with vegan nutella in the middle.

And Robin made these adorable little BATs (Bacon Avocado Tomato bites). She even made them gluten-free for me. Sorry for the bad picture quality… I was too excited to eat some!

There were some great costumes too! Can anyone guess who I was????

Would you believe this is the ONE PICTURE that turned out(ish) out of the 12+ pictures my husband took? Darn.

Sunny even dressed up.

“I’m BatDog.”

And now that I’ve spammed you with pictures… on to the recipe! How cute are these little eyeballs???

I was at a party store, checking out all of the fun things they had and came across some edible eyeballs. I was SO EXCITED as I normally just use skittles or vegan m & m’s. They were actually vegan too. But they had some scary sounding ingredients. Things I couldn’t pronounce, things I have never heard of and a bunch of number and colour combinations. Talk about scary food! That’s not the kind of scary I want for Halloween. So I thought I’d try my hand at making my own.

Combine all of the ingredients, except for the chocolate chips, in a medium mixing bowl and stir to combine. Pour the mixture into a ziploc bag, cut a tiny opening in a corner and carefully pour a bit of the mixture onto a parchment-lined baking sheet in little circles. Add your chocolate chips. Freeze until ready to use. I found they broke when I tried to remove them, but if you use a butter knife and carefully use it to separate the eyeball from the parchment paper, it will remain intact. Voila!

I almost skipped the Recipe Redux this month. I’ve been a little stressed as I’m having a get together tonight for Halloween, my in-laws are coming up next week and I’ve been cleaning/organizing like a mad woman AND I’m trying to get a jump on MoFo since my in-laws are up the first week of November and I want to have my full focus on them.

And whenever Redux does come around, I feel like I want to make a perfect recipe with perfect pictures. With the stress and trying to balance life, I said “Screw it!” and decided to just throw something together, and hope it worked out.

Plant Protein Power Bowls
Packed with protein, fiber and color, plant power bowls are trendy and delicious. Show us the healthy recipe that’s in your bowl.

So I had an idea of making a bowl out of squash and using a cute little squash as an actual bowl! How cute, right? Well… putting ideas into reality don’t always turn out as we expect haha.

This isn’t very realistic to eat out of either. So I just put it in an actual bowl 😉

Simple Squash Power Bowl (serves 2)

2 small-sized squash (I used acorn, but think any kind of squash would work great)
1 tbsp of sesame oil (or oil of choice)
1 head of broccoli, cut into bite-sized pieces
1 cup of protein of choice (I used Beyond Chicken grilled strips – SO GOOD!)Quick Almond Butter Sauce (2 tbsp of almond butter, 1 tbsp of tamari or coconut aminos, 1 tsp of maple syrup and 1-2 tsp of water to thin it out)

Roast your squash by preheating your oven to 400 and cook for 35 minutes or until tender. As your squash roasts, mix your sauce ingredients together and stir to combine. Set the sauce aside. Chop your broccoli and heat a wok on medium heat. Sautée the broccoli for a couple of minutes, then add your protein and allow it to cook for 5 minutes. Once the squash is cooked, cut it open, de-seed it and scoop out the flesh. Roughly chop the squash flesh and add it to the pan with the broccoli mixture. Add your sauce and combine it until everything is well coated. Enjoy!

Happy Friday folks! Baby – it’s the freakin’ weekend! I’m super psyched as I’m having a few girls from my veg girls meet up group over for a Halloween Party. Woot woot! I LOVE Halloween – it’s my favourite holiday. Do you have any exciting weekend plans?

October Theme: Halloween Inspired Recipes

We are collecting your Halloween themed recipes TODAY and will share our favorites next Friday, October 28th. I’m so excited to see what spooky treats you share with us today. Let’s get this party started!

Ok, I like baked squash as much as the next girl, but the smoky mushrooms? That totally adds a new level to this dish. I think this could actually be a main… my hubby and I would totally just polish this entire dish off in one sitting haha 😉

I’m always surprised at what people can do with cauliflower when I usually just cook it in curry or roast it with plain, boring olive oil. Zsu really kicks it up a notch with this crispy, flavourful dish. I really need to get myself an air fryer!

Place the chocolate chips in a small pot and melt on low heat with the coconut oil. As the chocolate chips melt, slice your apples into pieces and gently skewer them with the popsicle sticks.

Once the chocolate is done melting, remove them from heat and dip the apple slices in turn them around until the chocolate is evenly distributed.

Place the chocolate apple slices onto a parchment paper-lined cookie sheet and place in the fridge for 15 minutes. Remove the chocolate apples and drizzle on the caramel sauce and sprinkle on your toppings and gently press them in.

I mentioned on Friday that I was taking a course this past weekend. Had you asked me a year ago if I would be taking a Motorcycle Safety Course, I would have probably laughed at you.

Terry and I have shared a car for almost 10 years now. It’s worked out fine for the most part. But over the past year, we’ve really started to find it annoying. He has more of a commute, I picked up more volunteer gigs, c’est la vie. We didn’t want to get a second car. It’s a large expense, and we think it’s a little much for just the two of us. But an idea popped into my head several months ago, a bit of a compromise.

Let me introduce you to Bumblebee.

How cute is she??? I LOVE her. We haven’t really had a chance to get to know each other yet. We just got her last week and I just took the safety course this past weekend. I need time to gradually ease into this. I want to be safe! That’s priority number 1.

Speaking of safety, although I look adorable in the picture above, this is not anything I will ever wear while actually riding. I shelled out for really good gear! A full head helmet, a protective jacket (with back, shoulder & elbow armor), protective gloves and boots. I won’t be riding any freeways and I doubt I’ll ride in the rain or do any nighttime riding. Since I’ve taken the course, I feel confident in my abilities to ride safely, I am very nervous about other drivers though. Be sure to look out for bikes on the road =)

Happy Friday!! Do you have any exciting plans this weekend? My weekend is completely booked with a course I’m taking. The class itself isn’t super exciting… but the reason for the class is! Stay tuned for more info 😉

October Theme: Halloween Inspired Recipes

Show us spooktacular culinary creations! We’ll collect your posts on October 21st and share our favorites on the 28th. Can’t wait to see what fall treats you will share!

I can’t even handle how cute these doughnuts are! I just finished reading 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea so I have narwhals on the brain, I hadn’t heard of them before this and was googling every little creature the book mentioned. These are just too pretty to eat. Almost.

Check out these golden cubes of goodness. Sweet potatoes are just plain awesome in my books, I use them as a side frequently, but these are seasoned and taken up a notch with some dried thyme and could be a meal all on their own.

Ok… I will admit I have been putting off buying tamarind. I keep seeing it in recipes, but just omit it. But this recipe has it as a central ingredient and I’m so intrigued by the flavour as it sounds simply delicious, it’s on my list to buy to try this out next week.

Would you believe I just tried Chipotle for the first time just a few short weeks ago? I had low expectations, but it’s actually not bad. I much prefer the idea of making my own burrito bowl anyway and this recipe sounds perfect!

Alright. I jumped on the fall-themed recipe bandwagon. You will not see any pumpkin recipes on here as it’s not my thing. But I do love apples. Especially sweet, sour & tart granny smith apples. I typically enjoy an apple as an afternoon snack – it gives me a boost of energy. I wanted to try and incorporate it into breakfast.

You know what my all time favourite breakfast food is? Overnight oats. Hands down. There’s just something about reaching into the fridge to grab a bowl of already made breakfast porridge. It’s especially great after a good work out as I don’t always feel like making something after a good sweat session. And why not switch the grain up for some good old buckwheat? It’s also portable!

Overnight Apple Pie Buckwheat (makes 1 jar)

1 apple of your choice, cored & shredded

1/3 cup of buckwheat, soaked for 3-4 hours

3/4 cup of almond milk (or non-dairy beverage of choice)

1 tbsp of chia seeds

1/2 tsp of cinnamon

1/4 tsp of nutmeg

Drain & rinse the buckwheat. Add it along with all of the other ingredients to a food processor and pulse a few times. Pour the mixture in a bowl or jar and stash in the fridge overnight. It’ll be ready waiting for you in the morning =)

I chose not to add sweetener to this as the apple is enough for me, but maple syrup would go nicely. Caramel sauce and/or whipped cream could take this to the next level as a dessert. I chopped up a date and some pecans to go on top. Simple, yet delicious.

Any SouthPark fans? There is an episode where one of the characters rescues this little Turkey and calls it Gobbles. Although the entire episode isn’t “feel-good”, I thought it was cute that they rescued this little guy.

We originally had plans for dinner – some friends had invited us over to celebrate the Canadian occasion California style. Alas, they decided to go camping a little last minute. I was bummed as I didn’t have time to figure out a plan to have a get together, so we just had a nice, intimate dinner as a family.

Terry surprised me with this super cute card!

We had some pretty fall flowers as our centre piece.

I originally was disappointed that my energy levels found the thought of making a big meal daunting. But having only made two dishes made us not feel over stuffed.

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I'm Kimmy, a holistic nutritionist on the path to healthy living and loving myself. I want to share my passion for kale and chocolate with you. I focus on allergy-friendly recipes and you will find some appetizing healthy eats as well as some delicious indulgences here. ♥